Dr. Jimmie Mancell treats star athletes and weekend warriors alike
Story by Bud Grimes | Photos by Nathan Morgan & provided by Dr. Jimmie Mancell
Sports-related injuries happen to athletes, and Campbell Clinic in Memphis is known for its state-of-the-art orthopedic care for athletes and non-athletes alike. However, those same athletes, from amateur to elite, have health issues unrelated to the field of competition.
Enter internal medicine physician Dr. Jimmie Mancell (’90, UTHSC ’94) of Collierville, who treats patients at all levels as a member of the Campbell Clinic physicians team. From high school and college athletes to helping manage the NBA “bubble” protocols during the COVID-19 pandemic, Mancell aims to keep his patients in the game. His connection to athletics and some of the top names in sports came as a sidebar to his successful medical career.
Focused on Medicine
Mancell was raised in a military family, which brought the Mancells to live on Kentucky Lake after his father retired from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell. He graduated from Henry County High School and enrolled at UT Knoxville to pursue his dream to study medicine and become a physician.
His UT Knoxville academic adviser recognized quickly that Mancell had a clear career goal to study medicine and knew that UT Martin was known in the 1980s for successfully preparing students to attend medical school. He advised Mancell to consider returning to West Tennessee, where he could reach his goals and be closer to home. He stayed less than a year at UT Knoxville and returned home to pursue his academic and career interests. Mancell studied both biology and chemistry and found academic preparation at UTM at the level he needed to prepare for medical school acceptance and beyond. Favorite teachers included biology faculty members Carol Slack and Bill Nelson and chemistry faculty member Jubran Wakim.
“All of them … were very good about providing individual guidance when they recognized that’s what you wanted to do. … They were very engaging,” he said.
Returning to West Tennessee to attend college connected Mancell with important mentors he knew growing up such as Paris eye surgeon Dr. John Van Dyke (’70, UTHSC ‘73), which opened the door for him as a surgical assistant to practicing surgeons at the Henry County Medical Center. The experience was such that he considered becoming an ophthalmologist and returning to Paris to practice medicine.
When the time came to apply for medical school, Mancell wanted the best clinical experience possible and considered several options. For medical schools in Tennessee, he heard repeatedly that the best hands-on clinical experience was offered by the UT Health Science Center in Memphis.
“I wasn’t so much thinking about research at the time. … I wanted to go to the best place to clinically train, and I felt at the time that reputation was at the UT Health Science Center,” he said.
Mancell was accepted to the UT Health Science Center, but his first exposure to internal medicine made him question his specialty choice; the work was not as enjoyable as he had envisioned. Then, he met two mentors in the internal medicine residency program during a preliminary year of ophthalmology who showed him a different style of caring for patients that appealed to him and rekindled his pursuit of internal medicine, and he moved away from ophthalmology. The experience also revealed a love for teaching, which has followed him throughout his medical career and serves him well working with UT Health Science Center residents.
The Path to Sports
Mancell completed internal medicine residency and added to his credentials by pursuing additional emergency medicine training. Working alongside orthopedic residents in Campbell Clinic established relationships there and in the Methodist Healthcare System.
“As I started into my career, opportunities arose in working with the physicians of Campbell Clinic in caring for local teams – the high schools, Rhodes College, the University of Memphis and the (Memphis) Redbirds when they came – I had a little bit of that established relationship of being available for (non-orthopedic) medical issues,” he said.
When the NBA Vancouver Grizzlies relocated to Memphis in 2001, Mancell and Dr. Fred Azar, longtime Campbell Clinic chief of staff, were named team physicians, fulfilling the league requirement for lead physicians to cover primary and orthopedic care. He enjoyed the sports clinical care, pursued additional sports training, and today, he is in his 24th year with the Grizzlies while now working for Campbell Clinic.
Mancell provides primary care services for the team, which includes clearing players medically to participate, starting in training camp and continuing through the regular season and the playoffs. He also cares for team members’ families, the coaching staff and others in the Grizzlies organization.
“So, you really become the primary care provider for the organization,” Mancell said. “And anybody who’s an employee is certainly welcome to come see me and become an established patient of mine as well.” Some retired athletes who no longer live in Memphis still return during visits to see him as their primary care physician.
Once the season begins, medical treatments are largely injury-related. Mancell is involved in both the injury and non-injury care of the home and visiting teams, referees and others associated with the Grizzlies and visiting teams on game day, which allows team physicians to work with the NBA while also maintaining a clinical practice since they don’t travel to other league cities. NBA physicians now also cover the NBA combines and most recently began covering the NBA summer leagues.
Besides seeing patients, Mancell helped create the emergency action plan for the FedEx Forum and related preparations for crisis scenarios. The most well-known, in-game emergency in recent years happened in January 2023 on national television when Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin collapsed during an NFL game with the Cincinnati Bengals following a tackle, so emergency plans are necessary for player safety.
Among his accomplishments was helping the league plan and manage the NBA “bubble” at Disney World in Florida during the COVID-19 pandemic season in 2020. The league salvaged the suspended season by completing eight regular-season games and the playoffs in the “bubble” at Walt Disney World near Orlando.
Mancell – along with a few NBA physicians; the executive leadership of the NBA Players Health; NBA medical director Dr. John DiFiori; and leading infectious disease specialists in the U.S. – created the health protocols, and Mancell assumed major responsibility for managing the “bubble,” which he didn’t fully expect. But, he stepped up to lead the medical team that included administering a testing program for all participating teams to prevent COVID.
“So, people were tested every day, and then, those of us on the sports side then had to cover the games that were being played, and then, you stayed in the bubble.” Even today when he orders a COVID test for a patient, he addresses any related COVID-testing angst by telling the patient, “I was in the ‘bubble.’ I helped manage the ‘bubble,’ and I had to have this done to my nostril every day for the 10 to 12 weeks I was down there.”
Mancell remembers the lack of knowledge related to COVID prevention and treatment during the “bubble,” but the results he and his team achieved for the NBA were impressive. “Nothing got into the ‘bubble,’” he said. “We were COVID-free and ran that entire thing all the way to the championship.” The timing proved beneficial to the NFL, which began its season in the fall of 2020, and “because we had our experience in the ‘bubble,’ we were able to bring our experience and our information and everything to the NFL side to help them be successful with their COVID program.”
Filling Multiple Roles
Mancell’s career spans the sports world and has him at the table addressing major health issues facing athletes. Prior to COVID and his related pandemic work with the NFL, he has worked with both leagues to improve player health and safety.
He also works with the NBA G-League’s Memphis Hustle and the Memphis Showboats of the United Football League, which is covered by Campbell Clinic. He sees the UFL providing players– including those recovering from injury–another opportunity to play professional football and possibly even earn a spot on an NFL roster.
“That’s been a big joy of being part of that (the UFL),” he said. “I’m hoping it continues to work. I think it’s a great product.”
Also benefiting from his medical skills and knowledge are Campbell Clinic employees who can choose to see their own physician or take advantage of Mancell’s care at the clinic, which became available when he joined the clinic full-time in 2023.
“As I got here and established that (program), I think the employees have given feedback to the leadership of the clinic that they really appreciate the ability and availability to be able to see me in the clinic providing employee health (services).”
Beyond caring for patients, Mancell has a strong track record as a physician executive. He served as associate dean for clinical affairs for the UT Health Science Center and Methodist Healthcare System from 2013 to 2022 and was president of the NBA Physicians Association for two years, the first internist elected to the position that tilts heavily toward orthopedic surgeons. Although he has rotated off the association’s executive committee, he continues to work with the NBA executive leadership and Commissioner Adam Silver.
“Adam’s very engaged with the association leadership, and we worked together along with the other NBA leaders around player health,” Mancell said. “… And you work together collaboratively in trying to make everything as good as you can make it.”
Building Relationships
It’s an understatement to say that Mancell has worked with and befriended some notable people along the way. Many doctor-patient relationships became friendships that have continued. One friendship was with the late West Virginia University and NBA great Jerry West who was Memphis Grizzlies general manager from 2002 to 2007. Mancell is even mentioned in the autobiography “West by West: My Charmed, Tormented Life.”
The relationship was such that West took a personal interest in Mancell’s youngest son, Connor, and would watch videos and offer him advice to improve his game. Connor, now a freshman on the Central Arkansas University basketball team, played for Briarcrest Christian School, which won a state championship before West died in June.
“I certainly will tell you, as a friend, he was very engaging,” Mancell said. “We got to be very close. He took an interest in my son. He was more than willing to provide any input.”
Mancell also became friends with other familiar NBA coaches and players, including Hubie Brown, David Joerger, Zach Randolph (known to NBA fans as Zbo), Vince Carter and Lionel Hollins among others. He’s met other NBA greats that include Allen Iverson and the late Kobe Bryant.
“You build a lot of relationships with people, and it’s been fun,” he said.
Perhaps surprisingly, he finds his high-profile patients no more demanding than regular patients he sees at the clinic. If anything, they’re more cautious about relationships and trust, and because individual players and coaches are so well known, they receive special access to see Mancell and avoid privacy issues in the clinic’s general waiting area.
“So, you have to recognize in caring for them (high-profile athletes) that you have to do things exceptionally different sometimes just for the situation,” he said. “… They may come through a side door where I come through, I meet them out there, but it’s more of an accommodation.”
A Life Style, Not a Job
Workdays are anything but typical for Mancell. Although his work appears glamorous, his commitment to his patients comes with sacrifices, and he reminds those who want to follow his career path that only treating elite athletes won’t pay the bills – these are generally exceptionally healthy individuals who do not need medical care. This reality means he and other physicians who treat elite athletes care equally about the NBA superstar and the weekend athlete when either one needs medical care.
“We train sports fellows, residents who’ve been interested in doing something like this,” he said. “What I’ve said to them is, ‘First of all, treat everybody the same. If you treat everybody the same, you’re going to do well.’”
Workdays are often long, and his family has often been by his side when he’s on duty for a game. His wife, Michelle, is a nurse practitioner who understands his commitment.
The Grizzlies provide family rooms so those working can be with family members on game days. In earlier years, Michelle and their sons, Liam (now a UT Knoxville senior in cinema studies) and Connor, often joined him at FedEx Forum, where family time included seeing some of the world’s greatest athletes on and off the court.
Now that the couple’s sons are grown, family pressures are fewer, but his schedule remains busy, and he’s open to the next challenge in his career. He’s never been part of an Olympics medical staff, which is a possible bucket-list item. On the other hand, he’s enjoyed success on the physician executive career track, so that’s an option.
“As I’ve told my wife, I certainly am going to stay practicing here,” he said. “I’m going to go watch my son play some college basketball, I hope,” he said. “And if opportunity becomes available in any of the sports organizations that I’m involved in, to be able to help either lead in that organization or promote player safety and health, I’m always looking for that opportunity.”
Whether you’re a famous athlete or the average person who needs medical attention, know that the doctor is always in. Dr. Jimmie Mancell has built a successful career treating all patients who need him, which always keeps him in the game.
(The University of Tennessee-Campbell Foundation orthopedic residency program educates surgeons and physicians to provide world-class medical care. Learn more at uthsc.edu and campbellclinic.com.)
